Story: As far as the story goes it is nothing special. A generic pure minded looking guy. The story won't be so important but it's nice. Anyway few plotholes some events here and there and so on.

Art: The art is okay, characters look fine, there is a little attention to details, some enjoyable ecchi. And that's pretty much it.

Characters: Tachibana Satsuki and maybe even Watari Naoto are the only ones that stand out. The rest are okay, already seen.

Now the reason i enjoyed Watari-kun no xx ga Houkai Sunzen is because of Tachibana Satsuki she is the main
reason i keep reading this i feel the urge to cheer her on, if she is not there the story feels plain, she brings the spark that is needed, the light that keeps the story going with a little bit of twist, as she deservse nothing but the best, as i have read all that is available for now, the story is probably not half way there yet. I need more of her, like the person she is.

Overall is 7 for now! Because i do not know where the story will go or how the characters will shape it, what evends will upfold that will lead to the ultimate end!

"Youth... At times it can be wild, at times vicious. And yet, all those emotions from that age become an irreplaceable treasure. Although you may not see that right now..." - Masami Kondou

An injury, the fear of writing again... What do these two things have in common? Yes, they prevent you from pursuing what you want to do, and leaves you stranded alone while everyone else is moving on, as if time itself has stopped.

Story: 9
Revolving around the conflicting themes of moving on to pursue what you love or staying still for love, this is a beautiful allegory of life, love and regret.

After reading the
ending, I'm pretty sure that this manga is not mainly about romance. Although the theme of love is there, it is not as important compared to the main characters' interests and their decisions for the future.

Akira Tachibana is the best runner in her track club who has to take a break due to her ankle injury, and Masami Kondou is a family restaurant manager who has given up on literature due to various personal reasons.

With an age gap of 28 years (Akira is 17 and Kondou is 45), this manga tries to show the audience a different kind of relationship compared to what some people may think as a "normal" relationship. It is one where both help each other to reaffirm their thoughts for them to live the lives they want.

For me, any misconceptions about their age gap has successfully been removed through Kondou's personality. In the first few chapters they show how he gets scolded by his workers and the way he can't really handle his job. He is a very kind person and cares for his workers despite their criticism. Tachibana is rather blunt with her words, and seems more mature than others, except of course in "love", which she has experienced for the first time. Although they are somewhat similar I felt like they were a really good match allowing them to learn something from each other.

The symbolism of rain was very interesting in this manga. In fact, the reason I started reading this was because of the rain/umbrella on the cover. Obviously there's the melancholic but also refreshing feel, but in this case I think there was more. For me, it represented the length of Tachibana's injury or recovery, because when they first met: Kondou tells her: "I'm sure that it'll stop raining soon.". Now at this point he doesn't know that Tachibana is injured, but you can still say that he wanted her to go back and continue to live her life.

The use of metaphors was really impressive as well, for example the polished sea glass, the Rashomon story and the bookmark with the swallow. They helped a lot to emphasise this theme of making a decision, whether changing something or not. From unlikely things the author managed to connect them with the feelings of the characters. Fitting them into the plot itself mustn't have been an easy task either. Maybe it's just me who's bad at making metaphors but honestly, there were really good.

The reason I gave this a 9 and not a 10 is mainly because of the ending. It felt abrupt, mainly because of the time skip. However I do think it was appropriate and I guess you could say it was a beautiful ending.

Art: 9
I love the rain. I tend to try to find any manga with covers showing rain, despite the famous saying "Don't judge a book by its cover". And this manga perfectly nailed it in showing raining scenes. I don't ask for much, but there's this feeling that you get from looking at raining scenes and you really think you're there, you can hear the monotonous susurration or the heavy pattering sound. This was a perfect example of it.

Of course, rain wasn't the only good part of the art. I mostly felt like the art (overall) was cute, creating a relaxed atmosphere (except a certain point in the manga where I got really angry at a certain character. Manga readers/Anime watchers should know exactly what I'm talking about here.). I also have to mention the eyes... Wow. especially Tachibana's eyes. They are simply mesmerising.
Only thing that prevented me from giving it a 10 is the sometimes very long and thin limbs and necks of certain characters... I know nothin can be perfect but just saying...

Character: 9
I completely fell in love with Kondou's inspiring lines throughout the manga... The one I showed at the start was just one of numerous examples. He is often cheerful (although he does lament himself for all the bad things his workers say behind his back) and a good father. Thanks to Tachibana, he experiences the youth he thought would never see again and this leads to building his courage again to write once more.

Tachibana is someone who still doesn't seem to know the real meaning of love, I think it's more of an admiration, and that's why I always thought that her relationship with Kondou as "friends" was interesting. Although she could be misunderstood to be a cold-hearted person, she is innocent and caring. Her interactions with Kondou shapes her choice to start running again as the manga reaches it ending.

Haruka Kyan:
Lovely character who truly cares for Tachibana, as her long-time friend. She wants Tachibana to get back to running and does a lot to convince her. A lot of development between her and Tachibana, including flashbacks.

Yui Nishida:
Co-worker at the family restaurant, same age as Tachibana. She quickly becomes friends and talks a lot about her love interests and gets advice from her. I think she was an essential character to affect Tachibana's thoughts on getting back to running.
Would've been great if they showed how she was at the last chapter, but I guess that's asking for too much.

Takashi Yoshizawa:
He loves Tachibana, but it is unrequited. Annoying is probably the best word to describe this guy. I don't think he was particularly needed in the story (ok maybe at one point), at the end he didn't even achieve a single thing to properly make a move...

Ryosuke Kase:
Worker in family restaurant, in his 20s. I think his interaction with his sister was very interesting but the author didn't go deep enough.

Enjoyment: 10
I don't know what else to say.

Overall: 9
Give it a try unless you absolutely hate age gaps no matter what.

I have such a soft spot for college manga. Genshiken and Honey and Clover are top-tier manga in my book. For this review, I'm going to go over Honey and Clover. Honey and Clover is a Shoujo romcom written by Chika Umino. It focuses on five friends (Technically six). Takemoto, Mayama, Morita, Yamada, and Hagumi. Hanamoto is good friends with everyone, but saying he's apart of the main group is a stretch. The main characters are students of a art college.
Takemoto, I feel, is the most normal of the group, he can be childish at times, but that's really it; Mayama is the parent/grown up
of the group; Morita is practically a man-child (In a good way). Shinobu Morita is such a hysterical and endearing character, and that's especially true after witnessing some of his best moments. *Cough* *Cough* Chapter twenty *Cough* *Cough*; Yamada, the energetic, positive girl who's in love with Mayama; and finally Hagumi, the adorable, timid girl who has a strong passion for painting, and just art in general. This manga's pacing in the first half is fast as hell! The first five/six volumes take place in the span of three years! The pacing does slow down a little more after a while, though. With each chapter the months just seem to fly by.
Very few significant things happen in this manga, a few of the characters fall in love with each other, character's backstories are revealed later on, as well as motives, and that's really about it. The main cast of characters just live their daily lives with each other, and that's completely fine. I love some of the emotional moments this manga has to convey, nonetheless, I'm more attracted to the slice of life elements. There are many fun and hilarious moments in this manga that I will never forget! Like the Moon River ringtone (I love that song.), Morita singing "My Way" (I also love that song.), chapter twenty, Yamada kicking Morita off a building, by accident, more shit with Morita, and Hanamoto's confession near the end.
This was one hell of a ride! I'm really going to miss these characters so much. Last thing, the art is cute and I love it, nuff said! 9 out of 10 would read again!

First off, to give you a quick summary, I pretty much enjoy this manga overall, but definitely not the opening. Right from the first chapter, you can see it doesn’t have a good hook. Things even slowed down for the next 3 or 4 chapters, but I believe this buildup is necessary for the story to take off later. If you stick to around 25 chapters and you still don't like it, I say drop it. My overall enjoyment: 8.8/10 (Fun read). Re-reading value: 6/10. (Suspense is what keeps this manga good, by re-reading you've known all the details). Anyway,
here's my detailed review:

1/Opening: 7.5/10: Can be a little misleading. Without reading the genres or seeing the cover first, you would think this is a basketball romance manga after several pages, and I don’t blame you. However, toward the second half of the first chapter, you will realize that uh oh, things are getting tense! However, this opening is cliche at best, with monsters appear and kill everyone, seems like a scene taken straight out of Godzilla
Not only is the opening not hooking, but it also drags on for a little while. This has both pluses and minuses. On one side, it is necessary to depict the terror and ignorance of the survivors of the situation, of what is going on, and their quest to gather forces. On the other, 75% of the first 5 chapters is just monsters destroying building, after a while it gets repetitive, which might lead to high rates of dropping (Remember, the first few chapters are crucial as to whether a reader drops a manga or not). Furthermore, the premise of the manga is not stated explicitly until many many more chapters: what are these creatures, where did they come from, how to stop them, etc. If you stay with it, it could be rewarding though.

2/Plot: 8.8/10: It is primarily a survivor manga. Thus, it shares many characteristics with the likes of Gantz, but it also has a few uniqueness.
Similarities include: the suspense, the killing of characters, and several internal conflicts, which give way to character development.
Differences include: The characters don’t pick up information and intelligence as they progress in the game. In Gantz, the players have to find out for themselves the functions of the armor, how to win, etc., in Tenkuu Shinpan, the players have to explore the functions of the masks, and learn about the powers of the “Close ones to God” ALONG the way, which makes for an interesting “adventure,” so to speak. In Hakaijuu, the characters just run and fight, not until VERY later on did everything get laid out ALL AT ONCE, BY AN AUTHORITY, which I find not as fun.
Pros:
+ The fact that it kept you in the dark for a really REALLY long time. It gives the readers the feeling of actually being the manga characters: fear, ignorance of what’s going on, etc.
+ It gives you a rainbow-after-the-storm vibe, you know, all the couples take off and the happy-feel-good motif. However, to be honest, it is not really detailed. I’m ambivalent about this. (more under character development)
+ The most prominent feature of this manga is the 3 “breaks,” or “intersections.” If you have read Kamisama no Iutoori parts 1&2, or 20th Century Boys, or Code Geass Parts 1&2, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The story temporarily stops with a cliffhanger, and goes on to depict a whole other frontier, with new characters and everything (Code Geass). Or it ends with a “Great Battle,” and doesn’t show the aftermath, but rather flashes forward to what happens after it (20th Century Boys). It is not until very later that these 2 “seemingly parallel” theaters converge, and both sides start trading information, and what happened is actually revealed. This is extremely satisfying to me for some reasons. Not the best way to put it, I’m sorry, but I’m sure you’ll get it when you read it. All the mangas I reference have 1 of these, this manga has 3!!! All of which are well crafted, which shot this manga way up in my list.
My dislikes:
+ 50% of the mangas is just the author showing off his drawing skills of monsters and buildings. It is beautiful, but after a while it gets really repetitive and boring.
+ The author uses the same motif over and over again: the characters get exponentially stronger, while the monsters get EVEN MORE exponentially stronger. Imagine Dragon Ball Z. The difference between SS4 Goku and Goku is achieved in 500 chapters. Now shorten it by 15 times! You get this manga and its progression of power. Thank God he doesn't use the power of hope and friendship!
+ The author recycles portrayal of characters (more under art)
+ Mediocre re-reading quality. It is a fun ride, but it’s definitely not half as exhilarating as the first time, since you know all the “breaks.” Cherish your first time, fellas.

3/Art: 8.5/10: the art is good from the beginning. The building and every monster is drawn very detailed (although the monsters can be a jumbled mess and indistinguishable sometimes). Most impressive are the armors and technology. Looking dope as hell! However, what I hate most is that the author recycles his portrayal: he draws immediate family members exactly identical (mom looks exactly like daughter, dad looks exactly like son). This is the biggest turn-off for me. At least change something yo!

4/Character development: 6.5/10: The biggest disappointment for me. This story features very limited character development, even for the protagonists. While other survival mangas focus on the change in personalities of characters after facing death, this one focuses too much on fighting and action. The author should have cut down on his monsters and build more onto his characters. The romance develops very subtly, it’s just like “boom, we’ve been together since day 1 after so many battles, so I guess I’ve fallen in love with you at some point.” There’s very few moments of introspection, you know, when the characters just stop to realize and reflect on the journey and their feelings and all. You see none of that here. Also, in other survival mangas, the MC usually man ups and resolves to fight when something tragic happens to him (love interest dies, friend dies, shame of not being able to protect anyone, blah blah). In this manga, however, the guy just become totally badass overnight. Biggest turnoff for me so far. In short, you don’t see the roads (moments of introspection, shocking deaths), you only see the destination (couples just take off, MC just become super brave overnight).

5/Suspense, thriller, and buildup: 9/10. Extremely good due to the fact that we are kept totally in the dark. We ask ourselves wtf is going on. The battles are extravagant, and I usually get a Star Wars vibe at the big battles!

6/Ending: 8.5/10: This is not a great ending or an ok one, it’s somewhere in the middle. High in the spectrum. The finale has a big twist which I really like. I won’t spoil it. It also sees a big change in a character, but to some it may be entirely bullshit and cliche and plot armor, but again I really enjoy. Overall, as a Shounen, it is obvious that a happy ending is expected. It satisfies the typical ending and ends on a high note, giving its readers a feel-good vibes. It provides proper closure, as well as the “look forward to the future” and the “people marry, live happily ever after,” and it does so in a not so cheesy way, but a lighthearted way which leaves me feeling kinda bittersweet (I guess?).

Note:
+ If you finish this series, and are crazy about it, you can always shoot me a message and have a friend to discuss it over with! I love this manga but (somehow) it is not popular, so the need to discuss it off my chest is real!
+ There is no full English scanlations of this series so far as I’m concerned. I read this in my native tongue, which is Vietnamese, in case you were wondering how I managed to finish this.

Since I'm a dreamer, I really like these kinds of mangas and it really helps me escape reality. Arguable, I would've given this an 6.5-7 objectively but I'll give a generous 8.

It goes with the usual plot. The guy is super into anime due to some traumatic reason and is in love with 2d characters. After he saves the school's "punk" she becomes the sweetest thing and wants to become his real life waifu.

Plot wise,
The story in its own accord is very fantasized, mostly targeting men with the dream of an ideal girl coming to their lives. The story revolves around the usual ambivalent MC
who refuses the love and would, I assume, eventually fall in love with the girl, nothing too new. However, I have no idea what keeps me interested in these stories. Probably it's dreamy idea?

Character,
Again, the female character(s) in this story are only a mechanism for men to dream of what could be, they girls are not really characterized as real girls. The main character, similar to other main character, is very "ignorant" in terms of love. Throughout the story, I believe he will learn about love more and more.

Enjoyment,
I really really enjoy these types of mangas since it gives me a sense of dream, a sense that though this is not reality, its worth imagining it to be.

Overall, though art and enjoyment was great, it was all personal preference. With that being said, through the mundane use of plot line and character, I believe it is very normal and results could be predicted.

You know, when I first came across this manga, I thought it looked familiar. The characters reminded me explicitly of Kageyama and Hinata from Haikyuu!!, and the art style resembled my favorite doujinka. It was only after I'd completed it and looked the author up on MAL that I discovered the creator was, in fact, Bubunhanten, underneath their real (?) name.

Hatsukoi warrants nothing but praise. The art is crisp and smooth, and the characters have dynamic personalities that mesh well when they interact together. As the story revealed itself, I was deeply moved. It's a tragedy as well as a love story, with some signature
humor blended in, making it the perfect combination of heart-pounding tension and fluffy, sweet romance.

It's an excellent debut. This short little manga is definitely worth the attention, and I'm excited to see what Kazuki releases next.

Spent too much time reading this. Not worth.
The beginning starts off so promising and you get into this story and then it keeps getting more boring and just goes off the rails and forgets about the story completely. It just felt like reading a few chapters of good manga and over 200 chapters of pure filler, but you keep reading it for those once in a blue moon scenes where the story actually goes somewhere and you need to know how it ends.
And it's so frustrating that it just won't move anywhere. And then all the sudden at the end they're mature adults who
know what they want when they have been wussies for the whole manga. It seems so unnatural and rushed and if instead of so much filler they would have left more time for the end to come naturally.
My favourite girl won and I'm still mad.

I was looking for a new title to follow and I've heard great things from this series so i decided to give it a go. Little did i know I ended up reading all 78 chapters in two sittings haha.
The overall story is interesting enough to keep reading none stop with beautiful art while giving off a death note and attack on titan vibe with fairly likable characters. The only issue I found was minor and really did not detract from my enjoyment was that the 3 protagonist are insanity smart for 11 year olds which could be fleshed out a little more. Other
than that the series was insanely enjoyable.

You might look at this and say wow, it looks pretty good not to mention the artwork looks amazing!
But holy Christ I can write a paper on why I hated the story (and how the ending completely ruined everything for me).
I'll save that for the last part because I can rant on that forever.

Art:
It looks great, down to earth and rather realistic in some cases. The detail goes down hill a bit for me as it continues on but overall it's rather great. Not the best as it tends to get sloppier in fights or even towards the final few chapters. It isn't the
most beautiful, but it isn't horrendous either. Bonus points since I like Mecha.

Characters:
They have good flow and interaction with each other as time goes on, and the impacts they have on each other is very great. The MC with his first love interest was great, and throughout the entire story made sense why he was so focused on here. Even if it was obsessive at one point. The characters feel somewhat alive with the doings and personality. Later on, towards the ending, the MC's obsession with his first love interest in my opinion goes way too far. I'll touch up on this in the story section of the review, but overall most of the characters don't seem too bland or awful.

Enjoyment/story
"Why did you give enjoyment a 10 outa 10 if you rate it so poorly? Then give the story a 1/10, what's up with that?"
This ending of Sidonia no Kishi is the biggest joke I have ever seen. I remember being excited to continue the story, wondering where it was going. Then, it started to take a turn for the worse. Where my enjoyment started dying out because the story WAS a gritty story, those who are dead remained dead etc etc. There was no dues ex machina like anything I've seen in this ending. All the love that the MC puts into the secondary love interest and all their interactions and the secondary character's eventually decision to love him is COMPLETELY THROWN OUT IN BASICALLY ONE CHAPTER. Not only that, but a person who was (and by all regards should be) dead comes back to life for the MC to screw and have kids with. Which, as stated in the story, was biologically impossible. Did I mention that the thing he screws is basically his daughter?
Yeah, I'm not screwing with you.

In my opinion, this manga is great until the introduction of the "daughter-like" character and the final "dues ex machina" like character in the final chapter (I believe, I had to legitimately purge this story from my mind it angered me so much.) It was great, and semi-realistic while being entertaining. The ending however, ruined what I had loved about the story so much. It had killed all enjoyment I had in the story because of it, and two characters who clearly were dead had suddenly come back to life marked the final disappointment for me. It felt as though the Author needed to come up with this to please the Shipclubs or something, because it came so out of left field and awfully compared to every other part of the story.

To sum it up, read about all the chapters until the final battle. At that point, imagine your own ending because it is almost guaranteed better than what I read.

The ending is that bad, I am not kidding you. It was great until the horrible cop-out ending that was not only DRAWN with very little effort, but also dialogue with very little effort. It's like an M Night Shyamalan movie, another man who cannot end a story to save his life.

This story is a branch story of "Watashi no Fushidara" where a girl who has nothing in life has only one way out, education. Except she's not particularly smart and exhausts herself studying whilst looking after her ungrateful grandmother on top of dealing with being bullied at school.

To get to the heart of the story, the demon from "Watashi no Fushidara" appears and gives her a way out, TIME STOP. But the catch? Her lust increases exponentially everytime she uses the power, so she has to masturbate to get back under control, except it's not enough, so we'll have to employ our hikkiamori childhood
friend to do it instead.

The story continues with her life getting better and better, she stops time, has infinite amount of time to study and do tests properly (what a prim and proper girl), and she has her childhood friend to get her off so no issues right?

THE WORLD COMES CRASHING DOWN. Her teacher tries to NTR her, her grandmother finds out she's going to college, her biological father is a bum, and she loses everything.

The ending is a bit disappointing, which is why this isn't rated higher.

I really love the idea of this series, but the execution of said idea could be better.
The premise of a brother who end up looking like a siscon because he protects his sister all the time but in reality is actually trying to protect everyone from his sister is so interesting. The only problem is that a good concept can only go so far. I wouldn’t say this that often but I feel like this has the potential to become a lot more action based, the problem is the art style is lacking.
The Characters are fun, especially are two leads.
Overall I would recommend this
series, especially if you’re a fan of the creators other work Takagi-san.

This is a series about an unpopular High School student that has to spend his day to day life surviving against a super villain to-be.
But in all seriousness this series is very fun, the art is incredible and the characters…are CHARACTERS. One thing you have to keep in mind when reading a series like this is that Nagatoro is not a person but a character in a fictional series. People tend to hate a character simply because the character is unlikable, they have this mindset that characters should have to be exactly the way the audience wants them to be, and in other words these
people are not very subjective.
Nagatoro is evil incarnate and not everyone would be into a series about a character like her, but I think there is more to her character then where shown. The author is good at giving subtle hint that this girl does have a thing for are lonely protagonist, and her only way of conveying her emotions is to treat him like an animal.
There was a chapter where are protagonist is in a restaurant and notices Nagatoro her friend and two boys walk in and sit down not to far from him. Both of these boy try hitting on Nagatoro but are instantly rejected but not in the way you would think. You would expect Nagatoro to go all out on these two the same way she is with the main character but instead she just acts bored and dismisses them. This chapter made the character of Nagatoro seem so much more interesting than before and I hope we get more chapters like this, chapters that go more in depth with her character.

Overall I think this series isn’t for everyone but I’d recommend checking it out

A real hidden gem! I wish the updates were more frequent, but I've found this a fantastic read so far. The characters are very fun to see interact with each other, and the art and story have been quite compelling. From my perspective, this is also a very unique setting, taking place in China, in an Imperial Harem.

Even though the story is likely tailored to a female audience, I found this thoroughly enjoyable so far, being an adult male in my late twenties.

I suppose the closest thematic manga/anime I can think of would be Fushigi Yugi. Something that has occurred to me
that's odd is that even though the names of the characters are authentically Chinese, the title of the manga is in Japanese. Just a curious note.

How long do these reviews need to be? I'm generally a person of few words.

I don't think I would be exaggerating if I said this is one of the manga I enjoyed the most in a long while. The premise of it is already unusual: it's not your typical fictional manga, but rather an autobiography of the manga's author who, now in her forties, takes this manga as a chance to reflect about her long struggle to find a career in the arts.

The protagonist, Akiko Hayashi, is at first a carefree, lazy and self-centered girl whose biggest dream is to become a shōjo manga author. Unfortunately, she doesn't really have a clear idea of how to achieve this dream:
all she knows is that she doesn't like studying, and that she wants to apply to an arts college and make a debut in manga while studying there. But at one point in her life, during the last year of high school, she comes to meet a man who will slowly set her on the right path.

This man is Hidaka Sensei, an arts teacher, but certainly not your average one: he's an eccentric old man, who doesn't hesitate to scream at his students and hit them and their works with a bamboo sword. It doesn't take much for him to make Akiko's overconfidence crumble as he promptly informs her that her sketches suck. But while this attitude at first confuses Akiko, she soon realizes how much her teacher cares about his students, and the acts of kindness he's ready to make in order to teach them how to draw: in exchange of a cheap monthly fee, he's ready to do everything to make them achieve their dreams and apply to an arts college; his strict and serious behaviour is the proof of just how much he cares about his students becoming fully realized, respectable artists.

This is doubtlessly the biggest turning point in Akiko's life: from this moment, she goes through a lot of effort and many struggles to become the fully realized artist she is today. I'm sure many people can relate with Akiko's struggles, even if they aren't pursuing a career in the arts: there are many moments of self-doubt, concern over whether what one does is worth the effort or not, frustration over one's inability to do anything productive. Who knows, maybe there's even a lesson or two to be learned here.

The story is a rich one, and the author proves to be really good at understanding and reflecting on her older self. There are many moments of warm nostalgia over the past, enriched by the author's great sense of humour; I often couldn't help but smile at how easily the author suddenly deviates from the main story to talk about little episodes of her past, like when she remembers about her old friends, or when she criticizes art schools and their often lazy, unproductive students. But there's also a very subtle sense of melancholy, a feeling of regret over her past self's decisions, especially towards her old teacher. This sense of melancholy is never too obvious, nor is it forced on the reader, but instead it slowly builds up until it reaches its highest intensity in the final chapters. The author's gratitude for everything Hidaka Sensei taught and made her realize is evident, and I have no problem openly admitting that I even cried in the most emotional moments close to end of the series.

It's an inspiring story which will make you both laugh at some of the manga's funniest moments, and feel the same melancholy the author feels in her moments of regret. All in all, it really is just a beautiful, well-written story that I think anyone looking for a calm, somewhat serious read is going to enjoy.

I'm starting off this review by saying this is the best romance manga i've read, its a beautiful story that tackles self hatred,Love,heartbreak and all the troubles with young love.I teared up on 3 occasions(partly cause of the music i was listening to) cause i really felt what the MC was going through during those moments, it showed me that humans can be so fragile emotionally it just takes one little slip and you end up in a depression spiral. In terms of characterization while i didn't particularly like the MC at the beginning i started really digging him during the middle of the manga,
the female MC was absolutely phenomenal loved her so much while the other characters felt either too frail or too easy so they didn't peak my interest too much.
For the story of the manga it all poetically comes together at the ending in a very beautiful way, while some of the problems appeared to have gotten tackled too fast and easy i enjoyed the way they got tackled and learnt some life lessons from them, i enjoyed the constant tips the female MC gave out about human nature i had lots to learn from her several quotes.While for the art the most i can say about it is that its pretty good for an ecchi manga i mostly just enjoyed different shots of the female MC as she had the most unique look in the series. Bringing it all to an end i feel like this manga really had an impact for me transitioning as a young adult and am glad to have been able to stumble upon it.

Undoubtedly the best back-to-school types of manga I've read so far. The story starts off with our main character at the age of around 30 (27) and is unemployed. At this time of age, people are usually out of their half baby- half adult stage and begin to become acceptance to or against reality.

Plot and character wise,
The story has a plot that starts up slow but is able to ease the viewers into a suspenseful friendship heavy plot line; in which, the characters not only discover themselves but also what is important around them. Overall, it teachers the target audience (I assume those around
my age - highschoolers) to appreciate what youth and young love is left within them.
The 2 main characters, in complete contrast with each other as if to show juxtaposition of different ways of life in school and its pros and cons. Smart, school centered, and with no friends, Chizuru has always been focused in school and that makes her life somewhat miserable. We see that because of this, majority of those who follow her path IRL, lose the ability to socialize normally.
Reliving his life, Arata becomes a carefree man only to discovers and conquer his insecurities and overall becomes a better and more understanding person.
Basically, the plot was great and character development really is something else.

My personal feelings.
As a 17 years old, I feel that this series really speaks to me in a deep level. The reoccurring theme of regret has played a major role in my feelings in the story. Regretting not confessing to that person, regretting not taking the next step, and most of all regretting not enjoying your youth and high school years like everyone else. It has taught me to be able to look further than seeing school as a torture chamber but rather a machine of memory creation. All the friends to make, all the memories to create, and all the things to learn both socially and educationally. And for those older, it is a good way to reminiscence those school years you've left behind. Good memories.

I enjoy the first half of it. Afterwards it get's kind of eh and seems to lose some focus.

Things i don't like are the Mother in this. She just comes across as annoying and frustrating when on screen. She comes across as something you'd expect to find in those cliched stereotypical people that are always against same sex relationships. In fact this story has a lot of issues with characters just being something you'd find from stereotypical stories people make up.

Another example that is a good evidence is the female that wants to be a male in
the story. First i want to state that i don't like this character being i find her to be a badly created character. She is the type of character that is always exaggerated as being a victim and never has any actual character.

I myself don't like having Transgender people in my stories. I find it weird and uncomfortable ( Gonna probably get a lot of angered people by this one statement ) But the way the story goes about is just sad and depressing and it's not how the story is meaning to make it come across.

I don't know how to properly explain it but it's just not fun to read this girl ( That is fairly attractive ) go through all these things and start mutilating her body trying to be something you can't ( Triggering continues ) But that's what she is doing.

Something i think they could've done somewhat interesting to make it a decent subplot. Is have it so the character is a Women that Likes Women, As a result she is ostracized by her family that is a very controlling group of people. They see her as a disgrace and will only allow her to date other women by being a man and telling her to get a sex change. As she starts interacting with the two MC's she will start to realize that she doesn't need to change her body to please her parents and decides to be an Open Yuri lover. She then starts living her life as a women while openly admitting she likes women. This is the only way i can see a story doing a decent job at it and even then i don't know how it turn out. None of the people in this seem to even have any sense of how Japanese people react to things like wanting to change ones Gender.

Something i like and dislike is the size of one of the MC's. She has the size of someone from Pre-School. It doesn't even make sense that she's like this because she started not getting the Nutrients she needs to grow tell she was 14. She should have an appearance of a 14 year old and not a little kid. I find it just sad that she now has this small body. Would've liked if she started actually growing once she started eating normally ( Even if it's unrealistic) Or just have her have the appearance of a High School student.

But i do kind of like this cause it give the two MC's a Mother & Daughter type of relation. Wish they did more with this. The Kid looking MC doesn't even seem to care too much about not having a mother sense childhood. It could've been interesting to see how the Adult appearance MC reacts to suddenly having someone the size of child start seeing her as a mother figure. Even seeing the Kid MC react to starting to treat her Friend/Lover as a mother.

Also i don't like the thing with the reason her being in debt because of her Uncle. She had to pay her uncle money because he scammed her . They resolve this but she doesn't get any of the money she's given her Uncle.

Overall it's a fun story, But near the end it starts showing problems. Hopefully i wont get lambasted now,,,

When it comes to long-running manga series, especially shounen, we can see that many of them have a tendency to drop in quality over time. I have never in my life watched a bad anime or read a bad manga, but have witnessed great series like Naruto and Bleach end up with a worse ending than beginning. One Piece, on the other hand, which has been published for almost 21 years with still many years left, it still keeps getting better and better like fine wine. I am then here to tell you why i think so. It is not absolutely perfect, which explains my
9/10 rating, but this review will hold mostly praise.

I will not be very analytical here, as I am a very lazy person, but i will explain every opinion as well as I can. This will be a mostly unbiased review based on my taste and not on my thirsty lust for the series as a fanboy lmao. This is also spoiler-free

Story:
The premise of the series is quite simple: A boy who wants to become the Pirate King, the man with the most freedom in the world. The thing is, is that it is not why we are here. What makes Eiichiro Oda (the author) a genius is how he evolves the story from a casual battle/adventure series into a complicated, large, and a rich story filled with heavy thematics such as politics, discrimination, corruption, respect and so on. I could go on with dozens of examples, but since this is spoiler-free i can only say this: The story may seem as a standard, trashy shounen at first, but which later turns into a deep story, with an amazing lore and worldbuilding and creative content. With so many details to history, geography, science and more, makes this story very colorful, creative and fun. Oda is a genius. 10/10

Art:
The art however is lacking a little bit. It is far from bad, as 8/10 is not a bad score, but there are things that makes the art good, and things that makes it worse. Unlike many other people, i have nothing against the artstyle, since that will really grow on you over time. The attention to the design of characters (clothes and body structure), buildings, islands and nature is brilliant. The art techniques Oda uses in One Piece are also effective, such as the panel layout/flow and drawing the impact of punches/attacks. What turns it down a bit, is that the smaller details are often ignored, as Oda does not have enough time to pay attention to them. I do not expect to have a Berserk-type of artwork in my weekly shounen manga, but you can see that it is a little week, especially in the latest chapters. But that is nothing to pay to much attention to, since that is often overshadowed by the other factors that make One Piece amazing, and that Oda is never in top health who needs to take it easy sometimes.

Characters:
The cast of characters in this series is enormous. Obviously you cannot make 800+ characters -where 90% of them are side characters- three dimensional all the time. But you will often see characters with depth and factors that make them unique, not only in the story, but in all of anime/manga. As i mentioned before, the designs of characters are always unique, so you will almost NEVER see two characters that look similar. You will always be able to tell everyone from one another. What makes the characters good as well, is how they are presented, in terms of characterisation and actions. You will rarely see a villain in One Piece who is absolutely bland and forgettable, and you will often see them do different things led different ambitions and beliefs. I could go on forever, but my point is that Oda respects all his characters with all his heart, protagonists and antagonists alike. I could present you the main character Luffy and his friends, and maybe some villains they have met among the way, but i am only here to tell what makes the characters in One Piece special and likeable. Before i get tempted with presenting more characters, i will conclude by saying: If you want an example of an author who truly wishes to make great characters no matter what, then Oda is one to come to.

Other factors:
There are many other things i could discuss, but there is more to a story that can spice it up (or down). An example is pacing: One Piece has never had a perfect pacing throughout its almost 900-chapter-long series, as some arcs or moments can either strech out more than it needs or goes by way too fast. That does not count for the whole story btw, only certain moments and arcs, but that is a factor many people would pay attention to. Another one is as i mentioned before: Worldbuilding. I won't fo on too long, since i already mentioned it, but it is purely fantastic. So many islands! So much history! So many different people!! SO MANY MYSTERIES TO SOLVE!! WHAT IS ONE PIECE!!!!?????

Ok, I am sorry, I was too much of a fanboy there. *fixes tie*

Enjoyment:
Since this does not count in on the rating, i will only say that this is my favorite series of all time. What makes a series perfect, or how much it appeals to me are to different things. As you know from my review, One Piece does have its few flaws and is not perfect, but i have never loved a series more than One Piece. But what my brain says or what my heart says about the series do not affect each other, and therefore i do not count this in on my rating. If you wish to see which series i consider perfect (10/10 rating), check out my anime list.

Overall:
Exceptional when it comes to plot, story and characters, is a little weaker in art and sometimes pacing. Another thing i did not mention as how many arcs (parts of the plot) may seem similar in structure if looked at from a distance, but as much as i invest my time with One Piece, i can tell them apart in so many ways. One Piece is a great series that should really be appreciated. I can recommend this to anyone, but everyone needs to know that this series requires patience and attention. This is a masterpiece in storytelling. A little weaker technically.

Not exactly Ito's strongest output, but not without merit. While the anthology consisting of 7 short stories does feature some of the author's best work, it's not the go-to volume to get acquainted with him. The main issue I had is not, that the stories were bad, but that compared to other Ito's work the shock and horror factor was at a much smaller rate in this book.

The volume starts with "Blood Slurping Darkness", which as the title suggests is an alternative spin on vampirism. While the ideas Ito has are interesting and there is a twisted touch of romance to the story, it's not
exactly the most terrifying story Ito put out. This is followed by "The Ghost of Golden Time", which is quite frankly one of his weakest stories I read/seen adapted; bland villain idea, forced conflict and a main character, who just happens to have the right supernatural ability to explain to the reader what's happening for some reason. Luckily this is the lowest point the volume reaches. "Roar of Ages" as story #3 is titled brings back Ito's ability to take long existing horror concepts and twist them in a way, that feels fresh. While the writing definetly is in the right place, Ito's intention seems off, as the story seems to play more with the emotion of sympathy than with fear. "Secret of the Haunted Mansion" is another story, that plays with my horror-fan expectation, but doesn't quite satisfy it. To be fair, the build-up is great, but the pay off is basically (if I may allow myself a bit of a indirect spoiler) mostly just fan service for the Ito fan and probably a mess to the outside-manga-reader. Story #5 "Glyceride" is one of Ito's most memorable stories. Partwise for the broken-home setting, but mostly for the creative and wonderfully explicit portrayal of the effects puberty has on the human's body. "Earthbound" is similair in nature to story #3 in that it's more of a mix of supernatural with drama and mystery than being a horror story. Once again, interesting concept, but not exactly packing much of a horror-punch. The book concludes with "Dead Man Calling", which I liked for its ambiguity and some of its art, unfortunately it's once again not much of a shocker.

So to summarize; it was a fun read and a competent addition to Ito's vast collection of horror stories, but as far as horror goes, it does lack some big guns. I do recommend it to those, who are already Ito fans,as for those who aren't: try Uzumaki or Fragments of Horror first and if you liked either of those, here's a bonus.

This review has been structurally a bit different from my other reviews, though I'm sure most readers won't catch up on that. The reason behind it, is that this was a 20 minute slap-together for Goodreads, that I wrote spontaneously, since the site immediately gives you the text box after setting a novel as finished and I felt like writing at the moment. In order to compensate for the different structure, here's the run-through of different categories I otherwise cover:

Story (☆):
This category, I covered relatively well in my original review, so read above if you for some reason haven't yet.

Art (☆☆☆):
I guess this one is a no-brainer to everyone familiar with Ito's art. The man is a master of turning ink lines into horrific and unsettling imagery. Though I must admit, that I almost felt compelled to take a star away. As mentioned the book lacks some big schockers. Most of the stories are lacking in visual horror. Exception is the gruesome "Glyceride". "Secret of the Haunted Mansion" also has some fascinating visuals, but those are mostly staples in Ito's artistry and therefore only have a limited impact.

Characters (☆):
It's a horror anthology, therefore characters play a limited role and only serve as the devices to make you relate to the horror of the situation. None are particularly well characterized, but they don't really need to be. I guess, you can alway be a monster-fanboy and critique the creativity of the villains, those are however a mixed bag. On one side you have the acne-ridden weird kid in story #5, which had a great backstory and intriguing excentricites and on the other you have the completely unfunny comedy duo in story #2 with their unappealing character design and bland super powers.

Rating system:

As seen above, I use a star system (symbols I have stolen from Yu-Gi-Oh!'s entries here on MAL) to rate the series/movies in terms of the significant categories, which can indicate its quality. Those ratings do affect the final score I give the series/movie, but I do not use a strict mathematical method to assign the final score. Ultimately I weigh the final ratings by considering the stars given. I do not consider the categories to be equivalent and value a good story and characters over good art or a cathcy soundtrack. As far as the stars given go, I use a four stage scale:
(-) - bad, a series/movie is terrible in this category
(☆) - okay, it's fine, tolerable, but likely nothing special
(☆☆) - good, it's good, but may have flaws or isn't quite among the best I've seen in the category
(☆☆☆) - great, the best rating I can give, when it's truely remarkable in the category

B reaction is a manga that could have potential, but for whatever reason, it ended prematurely (probably because it wasn't selling that much).
The story follows the story of Onodera Kensaku, a self-taught martial artist. There is nothing special, really.
The art was mediocre, and sometimes questionable. The faces of some of the characters look poorly drawn.
About the characters, it follows a pretty generic character composition, each one of them having the usual personalities.
It was quite enjoyable, but it is sad that it ended prematurely. Couple of mistakes would probably have been fixed if it had continued. Overall, if you want a short
read, I reccommend you reading this manga. But like everyone, you'll be disappointed by the ending.

Araragi Express is not one of these extremely interesting mangas, and to be quite honest, only the first few chapters are worth reading. The overall manga is not worth your time.

The story revolves around Araragi Riuchi, who is a law student, and because of a crime that he commits, and which he considers is the right thing to do, in his way.

You got a few characters, who accomplish different actions with the main character. You won't find any character developement, even for the main character. I feel like this manga could have been done in a much better way. As I said, you
shouldn't read it. However, if you really want to give it a try, then do so. You will maybe find it better than I did.

The characters are both nice. I understand why some people find it weird with her being 13 only. I kind of wish the Teacher was younger around 22 or 23 and have the student be around 16 or so.

The ending bugs me with how they leave it with the mom. I get that the daughter isn't happy with the mom but i don't like how they left her in what looks to be despair. It's honestly really unintentionally sad and depressing. The daughter even mentioned not wanting to leave on bad
terms with her parents but yet they end the story like that.

I thought the story would be something like the mother allowing her to visit the teacher every now and then and have both the MC's on somewhat good terms with the mother. Hell , The mother must care somewhat sense she even wanted her daughter back in the first place.

Toraware-hime is an S&M story. If you can appreciate sadomasochism, you’ll enjoy this story. Since it’s short, there isn’t much character development. Just enough smut to keep you entertained. I like that it wasn’t the typical gushy romantic storyline. For being more S&M than other smuts and pacing:8.

The second story is a bit weird in regards to the protoganists’ relationship with her parents, but it’s a short story. Not as interesting a plot as the main story. It’s more reverse harem shoujo with some smut. I could pass on that one, but it wasn’t bad although the art wasn’t great. Overall a 6.

I don’t know how to describe this, but this story is truly pure. The story is simple, yet engaging. I really love it. I suggest you read this story.

Story 8/10: the story really isn’t too creative but it’s still engaging. A story with not very creative ideas is not always bad. Look at Sword Art Online, it’s really creative yet trashy (I’m sorry sao fans, I don’t like sao at ALL) the story is very pure and not dirty like some other stories by the same author (not like full on sex, make out scenes, etc. it’s just a lot
skin being shown, biting the nape of necks, etc. in her other stories; not so much dirty, honestly)

Art 10/10: the author’s art is BEAUTIFUL. omg. She doesn’t use bubbles or flowers every time the ship is next to each other like some other anime/manga. She may use them every once and while but in the right times.

Characters 9/10: I couldn’t decide for what the rating should be, but I chose 8.5. The characters have their totally different personalities, as usual. There’s the flirt, the plain and quiet girl, the boyish girl, the one with a dark secret, the shortie, and many others. But the different characters are pretty much needed to make this story enjoyable. That’s the main reason why I didn’t know if I should rate it a 8 or 9, but I’m leaning towards the 9.

Enjoyment 10/10: the factors in story, art, and characters create an overall relaxing story. It’s a nice story if you want a relaxing, pure, slow romance.

Overall 9/10: I suggest you read this soothing story. It has bits of comedy and it’s truly a wonderful story that’s pure.

I'll be completely honest, a large part of why I rated this an 8 is because of my fangirl heart, not because it was actually that good.
If you want a non-biased score from me I would say this is a 6. It's fine, it has a fine plot and fine execution and fine characters. What really makes me like this manga is how easy it is to lose yourself in reading it. It's 50% pure, mindless fun, 30% absolute fangirl fuel and 20% interesting concepts that could have been better executed.
It's fun and that's good. I know it's not great, but there are
some manga that are meant to be statements about something or several things; this isn't one of them. It's just mindless, guilt-free enjoyment.
I will say that if you're looking for a deeper experience, your time is likely just going to be wasted here. If you need some fun and romance just to take your mind off of things, you're in the right place.

What a lovely series. I've found that this author's works are very calming and inoffensive; I always read these when I can't stomach anything else. This story matches the pace of real life much better than whatever else I've read: no emotional rollercoaster, no cheap drama to elicit false sympathy; no long drawn out shouting matches of feelings and relationships; no over-narration; no gratuitous violence, sex, sticky feelings, come to think of it, a good analogy is Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, but for adults with more politics and fewer gender jokes. If you like Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun but also like politics, you will like this.

Eumenes is
the main character, he's mostly a realistic version of a nice, normal guy who is pretty smart, lucky, with a good memory and good hand-eye coordination. Thank god for a character that isn't made into a puppet of an morality argument or a cripple of a damaged backstory. We see his life, nothing's obviously over-exaggerated, thank god, except maybe how quickly girls fall in love with him, but that's ok because the author is trying to draw a parallel between the Illiad and this work. I loved the Illiad, if you love the Illiad, you will like this.

Wow, you must be thinking, this sounds like a godawful bore of a series. That is where you are wrong! Because the author doles out drugs to the reader in moderation, the parts of the story that do have feelings pack a poignant punch. But what does that do? It means the story actually feels meaningful. Surprise! I cried when I read this, just a little bit.

Also, little Eumenes is a friggin' psychopath, man. So there's that.

By the way, personally Historie > Parasyte because it's less in-your-face didactic and more history. This author tends to flounder and run around in circles once in a while, but with the crutch of actual history to fall back on, I think he will write really interesting work.

"Huh? It used to be a "?" instead of a number meaning it was still ongoing...Does that mean that ReLife is...completed?"

Yes, it was. It really was.

I ran so fast, opened my reading tablet and checked its status from my manga app and I found the last few chapters and almost cried reading them.

This was such a ride from beginning to end. I got introduced to ReLife through the anime, and I don't know what made me pick up the manga since I don't usually do that and especially an ongoing manga since
I tend to stay away from those. However, something in ReLife captured me and I couldn't put it down that night. I binge read it to its latest update, and each time a notification of an update popped up it made my day a little better.

You're a neet and have a hard time adapting to society, you meet someone who promises you a great job if you agree to an experiment: relive one year of high school. Would you accept this offer, if the stakes are high including memories of loved ones? This question is the base concept of the manga. We follow our character while he explores life a second time around, and he verifies the saying that goes "You can't read a book twice because it changes the second time."

Which brings us to the characters, and I think they're the strongest point of the manga. They were developed very well, whether they were main or side ones. They make you sympathize with them, get happy or heartbroken when they do. They felt like real people and not merely characters (but maybe that's because I've read this in the course of a few months what's with the updates and basically felt that I know them). Nonetheless, they were likable and endearing.

Overall, it's a read I didn't regret the least and would highly recommend it for a light ride but also packed with emotion right where you need it!

This is honestly a pretty lackluster series. It's another one of those guilty pleasure reads, terrible writing carried only by merit of h o m o s e x u a l m a i n c o u p l e. But then why am I writing a review for this? Well, if we sort all manga by "has decent non-angst-driven non-romance plot" and "ample h o m o s e x y," in the tiny little almost nonexistent sliver of overlap, Silver Diamond soars to the top.

Remember, kids, define your market and you will succeed, even when you shouldn't.

I didn't really like this. This is not a manga for people like me, who value meaning, ambition, purpose, ya get it. However, even I can recognize that this manga is amazing. It is the scariest manga that I've ever read, it beats out the "disturbing" scary of Junjo Ito, the "gory" scary of your stereotypical apocalypse survival horror manga, and the "existential crisis" scary of psychological horror, it comes close to jumpscare shock. Why?

Because everything is so goddam pointless. I believe "I Am a Hero" is actually one of the most realistic tellings of an survival horror story. The realism is precisely what gets
to me. The freaking monotony of the dude's life before and after the event, his averageness (to be generous,) the fact that people just get super well adjusted to having crazy dead people around very quickly just freaks me out. I thought there would be more delusional people or people who just snap, but no. They even treat the zombies as people, like what the hell?

Anyways, I finished it but I'll never touch it again. It's too weird, I don't think I'll ever come to terms with it. I don't really wanna think about it either. Whoever wrote this is a madman. Insanity.

Man, this is my favorite manga of all time. It is by far not the best written, the most insightful, nor the best drawn. However, it is the only manga that has duped me before I dumped it, and it is also the manga of my favorite character and my most hated character!

Now I must confess, I don't really feel anything when I read. I can tear up a little at sad parts and laugh at funny parts, but it's not powerful emotion. Even in Berserk, at the betrayal's climax, I was like, "meh, this dude is so ungrateful."

But boy, oh boy, Shiki is
brilliant. Fuckin' awesome. I felt elation. I felt rage! The story takes you on a journey, through stupidity, to imminent extinction due to stupidity, to the most satisfying death I've ever read about, then to a fuckin' party, then at the finale, to the greatest betrayal--of the author, against you. And you never would have seen it coming, unless you actually stopped and thought about the symbolism but no one does at gory! action! death! scenes, so you can't even chuck the book away before the author nabs you. Because it ends right there.

Anyways, I don't really think it's spoilers to go ahead and say I'm a die-hard Toshio fan, and sometimes I surprise myself with my unfounded vicious hate of the Shiki. Then, I have to step back and think, hmmm, why do we have such great potential for cruelty and disgust? What about fear robs us of our compassion, our reason, our apathy? And then I reflect upon myself...but not really 'cause Toshio is my favorite character w00t Abraham Lincoln, vampire slayer

Honestly, I usually don't tell people I've read Pandora Hearts, 'cause its so goddam clichéd: gothic, angst, hidden personalities, beautiful bastards, glory in death, etc. But I will review it because despite the fact that I only tolerate it as a piece of work, I actually do enjoy it a lot.

This is the story of a bunch of personality disorders. It is not a story about a boy who finds his true home, or about a girl who tries to recover her memories, or about fighting the 4th wall, it is first and foremost a story about therapy for personality disorders and how the entire
plot convolutes to fit the narrative of this.

Anyways, I like reading it 'cause I like reading about personality disorders and self-victimization and man, this story is rife with the best of the best! You've got masks upon masks and a martyr fetish rivaling Harry Potter fanfiction! This is such a great guilty read.

Well, there are already too many reviews for this manga but I liked it so much I had to write my own. This is what happens when you get an actually smart author to write stuff: you get cool stuff.

It's not actually completely fullproof, though. Some of the stuff, like the smuggling game, does require suspension of disbelief (e.g. Mr. No Eyebrows should have realized the deal Akiyama made with the "spies" and found some suitable way to dissuade them immediately after they mentioned what Akiyama said in the room,) but whatever. Also, some of the games, like the 2nd round game is an
example of stuff you would've come across if you studied engineering, so lol that was ruined, but otherwise it's real cool! The games are cool, thought out, and unique, the explanations are pretty good, what's not to like?

Well, the story does rely on the other characters being stupid a lot. On the bright side, who I thought would be the stupidest character is actually (plot twist!) the wisest them all. Character development is honestly like of erratic, though. Also, at the final game, it seemed like the author had run out of steam. I honestly liked the previous round much better. Finally, the ending is kind of abrupt, but it's also at a nice point where he can write a sequel if he ever feels like it, so hate the sin, forgive the sinner.

The art is great! The expressions are a treat.

Read this is you want to read an illustrated version of a trading company interview + tech company interview's bastard child proctored by Satan.

Some manga are exactly what they seem to be from the very start. This is one of those manga.

Sensei Lock On! Starts out a fun 4-Koma manga about a 33-year old fourth grade teacher who has a very chaste boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with her 20-year old former student. It tells the same half dozen jokes over and over again. The first time, the jokes are fun and cute.

The fifth time, the jokes are starting to wear a little thin.

By Chapter 30... well, the jokes have worn out their welcome.

Now, that wouldn't matter much if their was character development or significant relationship building.
Rest assured: there is not.

I don't want to bash this manga too much. The art is great. The characters are a lot of fun, and I was rooting for them as a couple. And the jokes do start out funny, the first few times they are told.

I just wish the manga had either progressed a bit, or expanded it's comedic repertoire.

A cute lil' slice-of-life gore manga! Great leisure read, well-crafted but light enough to be enjoyed at your pace.

The story follows the supernatural and violent (and sometimes just violent) accidents of the two main characters and the other hodgepodge side characters of the supernatural club. It is very, very slice of life because the story is a cycle of: nasty stuff happens, our protagonists narrowly escape, and then we accept it, forget it, and move on to the next chapter.

The reasons why I rate this so highly are because one, the story is very clean, two, the protagonists are well-developed and, three, the art
works well with the story format.

By the first point, I mean that the narrative flow is never broken and usually smooth (think of it as the difference between reading a book and reading a light novel, not a malicious judgement in any way.) The author cares a lot about composition, and it makes it easy to read!

The second point is why I find fault with comparisons between this and Junjo Ito's work: they stand on different bases. The protagonists in his story are heavily overshadowed by the story's horror elements; heck, you could swap in new protagonists in every chapter of Spiral and I probably wouldn't even notice. This is because Mr. Ito writes horror by emphasizing, deconstructing, and analyzing a theme. However, this work is heavily defined by the protagonists, such that you wouldn't have a story without them. That's because this author wants to make you feel like you're the one becoming a monster, and in turn, actually desensitizes you to a lot of the fear. So it's actually not a scary story, just a disgusting one. Also, I really like the main character dude 'cause he's so blasé.

The third point just has to do with the story being unique. The art's cute but the shading and sparse lines make it look creepy and gothic. It's interesting, I like it.

Read it if you like Detective Conan but with more death and less mind-bending explanations.

I, like many others, first encountered Shaman King in the western version of the manga magazine Shonen Jump. The series had the prestigious honor of being one of the first titles to premier in the anthology. While not in the very first issue, Shaman King started publication in the magazine's first year alongside established heavyweights such as Dragon Ball Z and Naruto. Quite an honor to be one of the first Japanese-only shonen series Viz was willing to take a chance on. It ended up being one of my more well-liked titles, and evidently this sentiment was matched by enough others to ensure all 32
volumes of the original series received an official publication. Shaman King had a charisma fitting to this warm reception with an unusually lackadaisical post-Gen X main character, a distinct graffiti-influenced art style, and focus on super powers in the form of hovering "spirit allies" (which would ironically be America's first widespread taste of its origin concept, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's "Stands").

When I eventually stopped following Shonen Jump monthly I made a note to myself to one day get back into Shaman King. What I thought would be a pleasant task ended up taking almost exactly an entire year to get through, a result of frustration at its length and missed potential only saved by goodwill towards that aforementioned initial charisma. To say Shaman King is inconsistent is both an understatement on its own and also the most accurate single word you could choose to describe it. To be more accurate, it’s even inconsistently inconsistent. The manga’s overall quality, focus, tone, and style jumps around like a child with ADD. Or probably more precise, an author who’s trying to shovel the next cliffhanger out the door in order to make the next paycheck. I sympathize with the pressure of weekly serializations, I truly do, and I bear no ill will towards author Hiroyuki Takei for my perceived failure to deliver or giving a neglectful performance, but it just ceased to be enjoyable for me at a certain point. That’s a fact, and I suspect it’s also a fact that not all of that decrease in quality was out of Takei’s hands.

It’s not necessarily a shame that Shaman King is structurally derivative. That is, despite its unique framework in its subject matter of shamans, it’s still by-and-large a typical battle shonen format. For various reasons, main character Yoh Asakura and allies are constantly being pushed towards the next one-on-one fight. You have the typical tournament arc, power ups, friends becoming allies, ki, the whole shebang. But just when it seems the manga has enough of its own voice to overcome its tropes, it falls apart by committing the same genre “sins” so many shonen works do with such reckless abandon that it has to be assumed Takei was merely considering getting readers to the next chapter rather than setting up and delivering cohesive concepts and stories. Evidently, even your average reader can pick up on what seems like cynicism and lack of author interest – Shaman King was cancelled right before its apparent conclusion after a devastating last third of failing to grip the reader despite every desperate attempt to do so.

The broad strokes of why Shaman King ended up being a flop are obvious and combine to imply that Takei’s writing just caused the bulk of his audience to lose faith in the story. The drama of the story falls completely flat over time because of amateurish mistakes and shortcuts in crafting a story. These errors are countless and not unique to Shaman King, but combined and in such frequency are incredibly disappointing. For starters, Shaman King is fairly quick to make death of characters a complete triviality. Several characters eventually get the power to resurrect the dead for virtually no cost. The cast even make a joke of this later on, claiming that they can kill anyone they want because they can just be resurrected afterwards. When a major character dies at the end of a chapter and is almost immediately resuscitated it’s a cheap shot at drama only mitigated by relief at the popular character’s return, but Takei fully indulges in this lame tactic of page-turning to get readers asking for what happens next with little thought or effort. After dozens of chapters ending in deaths and the story asking for us to feel a reaction about it, the idea that nothing really matters starts to sink in. You don’t need to see what happens in that next chapter – you already know. There will be no consequences. Sure, you might assume in a typical hero story that they’ll always make it out alive, but when even the “why” starts to be insignificant empathizing with the characters’ plight becomes extraordinarily difficult.

This problem goes deeper than just being lazy, predictable writing. The idea of the series treating death so frivolously makes an absolute joke out of the central Taoist-esque themes of pacifism and respecting all life. The series’ tendency to turn enemies into allies so quickly is often sudden and not really believable, but Yoh Asakura’s sacrifices to maintain his no-death policy eventually end up not mattering and he rightfully gives up not batting an eyelash when any of his friends kill someone right in front of him.

The results of the fights could be forgiven if the methodology of getting there were interesting, but Takei finds similar ways to defuse the promise of any interesting battle. There gets to be a point where the bulk of conflicts aren’t in the details of their action, but in everything surrounding them. It becomes all set up with no payoff. An early mistake Takei makes is quantifying mana, the power levels of the characters. This is a common trope since Dragon Ball Z’s energy scouters, and Takei quickly writes himself into a corner after quantifying the main villain’s power as hundreds of thousands of times greater than the heroes’. This immediately means that the main characters will eventually have to get sudden boosts in power rather than gradually growing over time in order for them to stand a believable chance against the opposing threat. Takei, instead of simply showing us the difference of power in characters by their actions or skills prefers to have characters stand around rattling off numbers. “You can’t possibly win because X is a greater number than Y!” is a favorite paraphrased line of Takei’s. This cold, mathematical view of spirit energy is also in direct conflict with the central theme of spirituality. In Shaman King’s universe, it is said countless times that a character’s mana is the strength of their spirit. This implies that personal character growth is tied to power, a fine concept, but one that’s not compatible with the number crunching necessary to push the characters forward against stronger opponents. Quantifying a power that’s supposedly tied to mentality makes no sense and is a nihilistic philosophy tied to a spiritual one. This contradiction always cheapens the other element, with characters going through sudden huge boosts of power that are tied to basic character development. It’s a lot of repetition over the same themes of strength of will and maturity, and when you start trying to tie both together to each character’s power with how they’re portrayed mentally it constantly doesn’t match up. A more confident, righteous character is weaker than one with hesitation because the story demands it, and vice-versa. The number system is a lazy way to establish the threat of conflict and its connection to the personal themes of the series with its character development cheapens the outcome of those conflicts as well.
While you start off with decent action scenes, the bulk of the series ends up hyping up big battles that rarely ever deliver. The formula usually consists of characters standing, facing each other while rattling off numbers until one has some spiritual epiphany and decides everything in a huge never-before-seen attack that compromises the direction of future action scenes. A particularly bad example of what I’m talking about is Yoh’s team facing the Ice Men team in the tournament arc. The Ice Men have a synergy among their Nordic powers of nature that sound potentially interesting and a capable threat to Yoh. End chapter. The fight begins, and the Ice Men’s assault is effortlessly shot down by one of the most embarrassing cases of “special snowflake” shonen main character grandstanding I’ve seen in a while. For whatever poorly explained reason, Yoh’s team is now capable of summoning absolutely enormous versions of their spirit allies. The following material is his team rattling off how inexperienced the Ice Men are compared to Yoh and friends, and how their goals are worthless compared to their own loft ambitions while showing off their huge dick spirits used for multi-page spreads and impressive looking stills that are used for extremely little narratively. The chapter ends after each character summons their giant spirit, basically stand still, and intimidate the Ice Men.

Immediately any promise of an interesting fight is betrayed by establishing who can only be the possible victors, and Takei has lazily set up a way where he can make a battle seem epic without it actually being one. Before, you may have expected dynamic action scenes, characters moving around a lot, exchanging blows, that sort of thing. But it takes a lot of effort to choreograph that, and it’s far easier to just draw a bunch of stills and find reasons the fight ends quickly and painlessly. This ends up characterizing the vast majority of Shaman King’s fights. Characters talk about numbers, summon gigantic page-filling spirits, and then the bigger one wins. That’s not a fight, it’s the equivalent of a Looney Tunes skit where each character keeps bringing out a bigger cannon until the comically large one wins. The fact that Takei has now set up our main characters’ abilities as being enormous will now also kill any interest he has in having to draw those monstrosities multiple times in the case of a long fight. More assurance that such a thing will never happen.

It's an efficient way to move through the plot. After all, what if readers lose interest during the middle of a long fight? If that was Takei’s concern rather than just taking the easy way out, then that issue is solved as well. Finishing fights quickly lets you hype and set up the next cliffhanger you won’t deliver on and (hopefully) keeps readers buying those magazines. Oh no! The chapter ends with our hero up against the entire enemy army! What will happen!? Nothing, the fight won’t happen because there’s no contrivable way it could be made a fair fight. This entire scene only happened to draw imposing stills to get people to read the next chapter. It’s almost like a scam. This never-ending betrayal of expectations and taking the easiest way out of any situation in the plot is the precise reason why Shaman King failed. You can’t endlessly set-up cliffhangers without payoff. That trick only works a few times in succession, but Takei rides on it all the way to the end. Once you lose faith in what’s going to happen, the set-up hardly matters anymore, doesn’t it?

Shaman King is marred by additional issues that suggest its inconsistency is the result of pure indulgence by the author. It’s very evident multiple times throughout the manga that Takei is just absolutely sick of writing it and is wishing he could be doing anything else. So in addition to rushing through the plot while also insuring it never ends, he throws in any concept he wants regardless of consideration of the reader’s own interest. In one spot of the manga it becomes painfully obvious Takei has cars on the brain. Another conflict instantly ends as Takei suddenly decides he wants to draw cars. The fighting spirits are revealed to actually be transformable cars and what follows are multiple detailed shots of real cars and their engines. Later in the same volume is an unrelated one-shot manga about street racing. Instead of entertaining the reader, Takei shoved that thought away and used his manga for practice drawing cars. After all, you already bought that month’s issue, and surely you’ll buy the next one when the final page reveals a new villain is just about to enter the scene (certainly to have no permanent effect on anything).

Shaman King quickly devolves into endless running around circles with conflicts made as uninteresting as possible and having absolutely no consequences. Additional characters are piled on instead of using established ones well, and people randomly disappear and reappear volumes apart. It’s a ton of large, seemingly impressive cardboard stands with nothing behind the flat, hollow drama. Even the presentation, the basic rendering of those big pages and empty promises isn’t enough to imply substance where the story fails. Takei’s initial stylized artwork takes a big hit around the same time the rest of the manga does, and the heavily stylized graffiti look barely exists any longer. Shaman King ended with a whimper after a pathetic cancellation, and although this may seem like the final nail in the coffin, it’s a blessing that we were saved further disappointment.

Story: Some cliches here and there, but the overarching plot concept leaves room for originality at certain points. Not your standard everyone-loves-MC kind of harem. Side stories feel forced, and makes little impact to MC's or plot.

Art: So-so for a harem-romcom. Nothing decidedly beautiful, but not hard on the eyes. Standard run-of-the-mill designs.

Character: Unremarkable. Could be because it's short compared to one with 70+ chapters, but there's not an overwhelming sense of attachment. Decidedly cliche personalities. MC isn't a total wimp, but not super awesome.
Some character growth, but nothing groundbreaking.

Enjoyment: Not for me. Incredibly frustrating to read due to a LOT of expectable plot-teasing. Makes you want to skip to the end. Ending feels forced and downright unnecessary, but pretty realistic.

I am curious about light novels (a pretty uniquely Japanese thing which we’d probably classify as young adult novels) so I thought I’d give this a go. This novel is a collection of side stories connected to the events of Your Name and as such doesn’t really tell a coherent story of its own. But that’s fine. I enjoyed the film and was curious to see what parts they expanded on. The film had a lot of room for expansion I thought, particularly in the early days. The bodyswapping story seemed ripe for all sorts of incidents surrounding their insertion into unknown yet preexisting social
connections. And it didn’t last long enough to my mind.

But here lies the mistake in my interest: this book by necessity follows movie continuity. All those interesting avenues to explore were alternate routes that the film could have taken. Which means that there is actually very little left for them to do with the concept beyond expand on the secondary characters. And so that’s what we get. The entire book takes place in Itomori. We get to hear from most of Mitsuha’s family (her sister and father) as well as her friend Teshi. All these stories basically say the same thing: Mitsuha’s acting weird; what should we do about it and how should we explain it? While it interesting to learn more of these people’s backgrounds and characters, I don’t feel particularly thrilled by anything I’ve learned. It doesn’t help that it isn’t so much narrative as stream of consciousness thoughts.

The first chapter is closer to what I expected this book to be. It tells the story of Taki in Mitsuha’s body trying to pass as her. The film was mainly experienced from her POV for the first half so we missed a lot of this stuff. But in truth, there’s nothing very interesting there. Taki likes feeling her breasts. What a revelation. He doesn’t know how to put on a bra. He struggles with the idea of avoiding conflict. He’s afraid of what she’ll do to him if he steps at all out of line. All of this stuff seems pretty obvious. And unimpressive. This is again the limits set by the film impeding any sort of creative expansion. I hadn’t realized before reading just how little there was left unexplored by the film.

This book verges on spoiling the film by making it seem emptier than I thought it was. We saw literally everything of interest on screen and there was nothing worthwhile that we missed. I’m not exactly sad I read it, but I’m certain that I’ll never look at it again. It just doesn’t add enough to make it worthwhile.

“Flower and Thunderbolt” tells about a second year high schooler girl named Futamura Umiho who wants to make love confession to her classmate who she just met in April after class announced. One day she was sad while muttering to herself. Then there was someone who responded. She accidentally met Aisaki Yachiyo, who is a member of the Action Committee *I don’t know the exact term in English because I read it in my language, so … I’m sorry if there any mistake*. That's where the story starts.

Story (9/10)

I think the plot the author made was good enough for manga with just contains two volumes.
Not too slow, nor too fast. The delivery flows well as the story progresses with the introduction of the characters involved in the story. All backgrounds told clearly can be easily understood. For romance manga, this manga presents a less complicated story. There is no love triangle, no harem, and also no significant conflict. There is only a simple love story and some heartwarming moments. Rejection is definitely there. There is no love story without any rejection.

Art (8/10)

The cover of this manga successfully made me read this manga. They are colorful and attract people to read them. Nothing special about the art. The art of the manga is like the shoujo manga in general, but it looks more rough than the others. At first I was not satisfied with the art. After I finish this manga, I realize that it is a touch of the creator. In the end, I quite liked her art. The creator can also describe the emotions felt by the characters. The chibi version of the character is used when the character is feeling emotionally sad, angry, excited, or blushing. That feature makes it more fun to read.

Character (8/10)

Since there are only a few characters that often appear in the story, not much development of characters can be told. The dominant development seen from Umiho who previously hesitant in conveying her feelings. She finally had a courage to confess to the person she likes. In addition, she looks happier after she meets Yachiyo. On the other hand, Yachiyo acts as the one who always supports Umiho to overcome the problems she faces. She does her job well to develop Umiho’s character.

Enjoyment (9/10)

Reading "Flower and Thunderbolt" is a new experience for me because the story in this manga is calming, unlike other manga involving many romance spices that seem cliché and unnecessary. The manga is straightfoward in telling the story. I like every detail in the story. However, it took me several times to read that I understand the piece of story in it.

Overall (8.5/10)

I enjoy reading this manga. Although it only contains 2 volumes, but there’s no hanging story without certainty. I think I know the reason why the creator named this manga "Flower and Thunderbolt". Flower depicts the beauty that had not yet existed but in the end bloom after being fertilized by something, while the thunderbolt depicts the unexpected things of one's past that makes us surprised. I recommend this manga to you who need an alternative romance manga if you are bored with complicated romance manga.

Being only 33 chapters I decided I’d just power through it and then bring all of you my thoughts

I’m glad I did because once I started it up I just couldn’t put it down. Teppu is an incredibly intriguing manga for many reasons and It’s also really good to boot. From its complete focus on women’s MMA to it’s incredibly respectful treatment of women as badasses who can through a knock-out punch – there is 0% fan-service in this series, these girls will literally kill you if you try to sneak a peek at them – to it’s portrayal of Natsuo as a sort of
villain who you can’t help but root for.

The psych complexities Moare focuses on with Natsuo and those she has effected throughout her 16 year old life cannot be understated here as he blends many layers between the folds of the story. There is Natsuo’s broken relationship with her brother, her broken relationship with her once-best friend Sanae, her hatred for Yuzuko for being the first person to finally be better at her at something, and Natsuo’s own inferiority complex because she’s jealous of those who actually have to struggle to be good at something.

Teppu fight 2Natsuo quite literally plays the part of the villain for this series if you flipped the viewpoint around to Yuzuko’s P.O.V., however because of this it makes Natsuo that much more compelling as a hero. I found myself enthralled by Moare’s portrayal of this tall, lanky girl who was so naturally gifted that she made enemies everywhere she went, and yet all she wanted was to be normal just like all of them. But she can’t, because it’s a superpower she can’t turn off.

Now, unfortunately because there are so many subplots flying every which way in the background and with the series being the short length that it is, because we also have A lot of characters in this series, by the time the story is over not everything Moare set into motion gets settled and even those events that cause Natsuo to become the way she is get rushed a bit in the finale.

However, the way Moare ends the series it almost feels like we don’t need to see those other subplots, that they weren’t really that important in the grand scheme of things, that Natsuo’s story is more or less complete and anything after that is just fluff that would exist because he wants it not because he needs it to. It is a very interesting dichotomy, because I walked away feeling satisfied by the end which not many authors can achieve when they don’t give themselves time to really bring closure to all their characters.

From just a narrative perspective, I think what Moare achieved here is superb. All the characters in this series have a force that drives them, they each have their goals and their fears, their achievements and their let downs. And I know there is STILL this feeling within the entertainment industry that women can’t be badass enough to carry stories, but really if anything proves them wrong it’s the incredibly down to Earth, street level brawl of a manga. Because there’s nothing really outlandish about it, over the top, or anything that gives the story a sort of fantasy element, this manga could easily be adapted into a Hollywood movie and it would probably do really, really well. Especially with the UFC crowd.

Teppu fight 1Let’s talk about the MMA in this manga, shall we? This series was recommended to me because currently I am reading a manhwa titled Girls of the Wild’s which also centers heavily around MMA, however it doesn’t generally go into a lot of depth of how MMA works and generally sees it’s characters fighting in their own styles while pitted against one another. Boxer vs. a Judo master, both doing their own style of moves against one another. Plus there’s a lot more to that series that lends itself fantasy elements even in the fighting.

None of that seeps into Teppu. Now, there are plenty of speed shots and power shots that are meant to help you understand the force these women are putting their attacks, but Moare makes it very clear throughout the manga that MMA is MMA, and whether you known Jiujitsu, Karate, or just street brawling, when you get in that ring, you fight MMA-style and leave your clear-cut style at home.

There are pages and pages strung throughout the series that go way in-depth into how MMA in Japan works, and gives you step-by-step instructions on how some basic moves work so that you get the gist of what’s going on the story which then in turn allows you to enjoy the fights even more. Moare is clearly a fan of this sport and has down his research into how everything is supposed to work. Even down to the padding the girls wear that is generally drawn in as much detail as anything else this series offers.

Which, by the way, this manga has beautiful art as well. If you didn’t think it couldn’t get any better. Never does it feel like Moare skimps on the details, like I mentioned earlier even going so far as to detail the padding and sponsorship wear these women adorn themselves with in the ring. The action is fluid, and all the girls look like real people. All dressed and pampered in their own way, older women looking older, younger women look younger. And the haircuts that allow for some of the characters to feel indistinguishable from men which in reality there are plenty of women like that.

Every which way I turned I felt myself appreciating this series more and more for its attention to detail within its art, its portrayal of MMA as an actual sport, the rich cast of characters as well the different personalities of each and every one of them, Natsuo’s journey to finally feel happy because for once in her life she actually had to work at something.

This series is quite compelling. And like I said, though the ending can feel rather rushed, dropping some of the subplots created by other supporting characters, it doesn’t feel unsatisfying either. At 33 chapters Teppu does exactly what it planned to do and doesn’t overstay its welcome. If we were to ever get more from this series I would be very happy, but if we didn’t I’d also remain very happy.

If you like MMA, if you like interesting characters, if you like stories that focus on something different for a change, then I definitely recommend you check this manga out. Unfortunately it’s not licensed in North America but you can find scanlations online – even though I’d love to tell you to go out and buy it, it’s still a rather unknown series at this point. It was to me before I started reading it.

An alright story that i feel was trying to tell a bigger story then it actually did.

With what it was trying to do, I feel that the story needed to be longer. 5 chapters is way to little for an audience to get really attached to the characters and get really into the story.

But for what it did do, I enjoyed it.

There are somethings i didn't like. Most obvious one would be the crazy stalker story arch. So far the story was believable and felt like something that could actually happen. I even looked past the girl injuring herself cause she couldn't deal with
her job as an Artist. But the stuff that happened in the plot with the stalker was just eh. I also don't like how the stalker character got treated by the story itself. She doesn't even seem like the type that would be like that.

Not a fan of them also having respectable jobs to then having to do construction.

I'm a fan of the art though. While the art isn't great or anything, It does have a personal feel to it that i like.
Overall a decent story worth a read.

I only read half of it because I saw many people commenting that the second half wasn't very good, pure drama, etc.
But as far as I read, it's a relatively good shoujo manga. The art is better than many mangas out there. The story and the characters are a bit cliché, but this manga stands apart from most shoujo because of the way it treats abusive relationships. This is basically the story of a girl trying to move on from a relationship with a guy who can save her from others but not from himself. It shows the "bad guy"'s side, but it doesn't excuse
him. And violent behaviour is shown as problematic, and not as "sexy" as in many shoujo mangas out there.

Do you like realistic/badminton manga with a ton of cute girls with an inspiring coach? This manga is for YOU!

I was unaware of this manga until recently when I found out that this manga is going to be adapted to Anime. So, I give it a shot and..... I enjoy it! :)))

So far, up to chapter 34, this manga does not contain superpower abilities like those of Kuroko no Basuke (Emperor Eye or Zone...). Rather, this badminton is pretty realistic in terms of how real life skilled badminton players can do and how energy can affect their performance. This is something I was amazed
and cherish because I appreciate the illustration of how an "actual" badminton game can be.

For people who are concerned with the correlation of each game's length to chapter's length, it is definitely not like Yowamushi Pedal..., which is ridiculously ****ing long. Each game takes around 1~2 chapters or 3~5 chapters (depending on importance). For me, this is reasonable.

Story: 8
(In the beginning, everything was kinda confusing for me. But as the story goes on, the reason Ayano's strange behavior will be explained. I give it an 8 because this story has a ton of potential and it hasn't reached to a point where I give it a higher score.)

Art: 9.5
(I feel that the Mangaka's art skill improves as chapters go on, especially when the manga reaches chapter 24ish when the main characters face each other)

Character: 9.5
(We can see growth and distinctions from different characters. I really love how the Mangaka makes Ayano to embody such a unique character and background. Yet, I give it a -0.5 because the creation of Connie as a character feels like a forced character. I was supposed to give it a -1 for this, but she is cute so +0.5... ;P)

Enjoyment: 10 (I give it a 10 because I couldn't stop reading this manga after I picked it up)

Overall: 9 (As a sports manga, badminton manga, it definitely will attract a specific group of readers; however, I have never touched this sport and I enjoy the manga so far. Thus, everyone should give it a shot if he/she haven't read this. -1 for not being the best but a top notch manga)

Having read so much manga, the setup for Ayano as a manga character is extremely unique. I want to see the transformation fo Ayano.

This is one of those one shots you can come across and it just makes you crave more.

I'v always liked stories involving the Deaf. Something about two people becoming Friends/Lovers even with such a thing preventing them from normal interaction is just really appealing to me. I also find that i always feel a little down with that.

I find it nice how charming and interesting the friendship between these two characters are. We get a glimpse at what the Deaf girl experiences in terms of bullying and also get to see how the other MC deals with her other friends wanting her to stop
spending time with the Deaf girl.

The art style i also find has a charming atmosphere to it. The characters don't look the same as other stories have but feels like it has it's own personal touch to it.

I like to avoid One shot's, Because i tend to find lot's of stories that i wish we had more of but we will never get ( Even though i will usually still read them knowing the heartache i will get wanting more) This is also the same issue. I want more and i could easily see this being a 20 or so chapter manga.

I'll try to update this review periodically as more chapters are available, but it should give a fair indication if this manga is for you or not. There may be some spoilers of the first 5 or so chapters so that I can give you an informed opinion, but nothing too major.

To preface this review, I'm a sucker for the horror genre as a whole. The terror, the hopelessness, the gore and nudity, and how ridiculously over the top the genre can be sometimes. This manga falls solidly in "the over the top" camp.

We have intelligent killer apes that seem more like monsters than
animals (Planet of the Apes meets Ito Junji's style), someone that can talk to animals, someone who gets off on gore, more characters with other zany powers, and a girlfriend that "looks like a grade schooler but we swear she isn't™".

Most people would likely write this manga off after reading the above paragraph, but if you are still here and the above doesn't sound like a deal breaker, I welcome you to another fun read my friends.

Even though the characters have about as much depth as a puddle, some of the archetypes are a lot of fun. The art is really nice and the gore is over the top and awesome.

If you like over the top horror that's sometimes more funny than scary, you'll find a lot to like here. As it stands now I can't imagine this being anyone's favorite manga, but even so it is an entertaining read that will tickle that special spot some of us have in our hearts for absolutely ridiculous horror.

What was the moment where you had the crippling realization you wasted your life and that instead of reading Bleach you could have been mastering a talent or trade and could have been a doctor or an architect but instead you spent hours upon hours posting theories about which forgettable side villain was assigned which number or letter, or pondering where Ichigo's dad falls on the power scale or what his shikai is

Which panel or episode did you blink and open yours eyes, only to see the pixels on the screen as a mere construct of atoms and feel that that's all you are too?

When
did you realize that there is no you, and that your existence and bleach's existence are both ephemeral constructs that will disappear one day along with the neurons in others' heads that give your presence here any context?

When you were pulling up your pants after looking at that Yoruichi doujin for the third or eighth time, did you consider that the fluid you spilled contained data that, on a universal scale, is as valuable as you are?

How many heartbeats have been expended looking at Aizen's smug smile? Whitespace? Orihime's boobs? You only get so many million of them before the dream is over, and your whole being, your story, becomes as important as that one minion of Grimmjow, except that there will never be a Wikia article about you.

Do you breathe? Or is it just cells acting on their own while your consciousness can reap the benefits of looking at that Halloween spread of Rukia's ass in a devil costume?

Which millisecond in the 4,415,040,000,000,000 milliseconds that have ever been since the dawn of this plane of existence was the one where you truly heard the scream of infinity?

Was it the chapter where you realized Tatsuki would never be a main character?

Jigokuraku focus on the story of a former ninja searching for the elixir of immortality in a mysterious land, so he can be pardoned from his crimes. Overall, the premise of the story isn't quite new, but not quite old. However, the author makes up for this!While the story is young and still developing, the author has done a great job with the series. This is due to great world building, art and characters expression.

Because of the plot, we're suppose to be in a mysterious world with the unknown; therefore, we (the readers) are suppose to feel that and feed off that energy. My
hair is suppose to stand! And from this author I can feel it! The author has done a great job of keeping that energy and constantly introduce new elements to keep the readers on their toes and interested.

Secondly, the author can't keep that energy going unless he has great art to portray expressions of characters. This I might say is where the author excels the most. He constantly brings better art each week which is nice. This allows the reader not to get bored or distracts by bad art instead of the art helping the story come along.

Overall, while it is a young story, I feel like it is moving in the right direction to becoming a main stay in the action manga we talk.

Rewriting the wheel. In a world where harem has been dogged, overdone and rehashed, 5-toubun no Hanayome is the revival of the harem genre. The story focuses on the protagonist (Uesegi) having to help quintuplet sisters graduate high school. While the premise of the story may not be original (hint hint "We Never Study), it wins in a place so many harems fail: pacing/plot and excessive fan service.

Due to the complexity of love stories, authors constantly dig themselves into a hole and introduce filler arcs, fan service or new girls to slow the story down. These speed bumps lead to a clunky, inconsistent story
that just isn't believable. In this manga, however, there are no problems. We learn about the characters without being distracted by constant fan service (clothing malfunctions). Thanks to this the story moves forward in a consistent, believable fashion with progress such a hand holding coming in 5 chapters instead of 50.

Overall, I feel like this manga is a huge upgrade from Nisekoi and harems others. If you want a story that possess good romance and pacing, this is what you're looking for! Enjoy!

Dr. Stone has finally reached the 50 chapter milestone and I've decided to give it a review. I'll probably update every ~50 chapters or so if I can, to keep things up to date. Tl;dr ratings below

Story 9/10
Art 10/10
Characters 7/10
Enjoyment 10/10
Overall - 9/10

Story - 9/10

I'll be upfront, I'm baised here because I really enjoy the survival style, man vs nature conflict that's present in many parts of this series. Nonetheless I think Inagaki has done a fantastic job with the story of Dr. Stone so far, and made use of both man vs nature conflicts and man vs man conflicts to keep the story very
engaging throughout all 50 chapters. Each arc in the story has had good pacing, and with every new chapter I've felt as though something notable happened to progress the plot and drive Senkuu to reaching the arc's goal.

The one major issue I do have with the story is that quite a lot of it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. It's only natural given that the series is science heavy while being set in a post-apocalyptic world, but that's why I've rated the story portion a 9 instead of a 10.

Art - 10/10

I love Boichi's art. There hasn't been a single chapter so far where I'm not thoroughly impressed at the detail and attention that has been put into a lot of the art, especially things like double page spreads. I'm even more impressed considering that Boichi is also doing the art for his other weekly series, Origin, at the same time as he's doing art for Dr. Stone. It seems like a ridiculous quantity of work yet he still maintains that incredible quality as well.

Characters - 7/10

The weakest point of this series is by far the antagonist, who at times seems like he was made to be an extremely perfect and extremely overpowered character. It does set up a very nice ideological conflict between him and Senkuu, however this can also feel a bit forced or absurd at times.

Aside from the antagonist(s), I think the rest of the characters in this series are written well. Interactions between Senkuu and the characters around him are always interesting and there are a lot of lovable side characters introduced. Although very few of the characters in the series have been developed in much depth, it is only chapter 50 so things will likely change as the story itself progresses. This rating will quite likely go up by chapter 100 if more characters are developed well

Enjoyment - 10/10

I really enjoy man vs nature conflicts, post-apocalyptic settings and science driven plot in their own rights. Mashing those together is really a winning strategy for Dr. Stone. It's the manga I look forward to reading every week the most, tied with One Piece. Every chapter is a treat to read

Overall - 9/10

Dr. Stone has a bit of everything - comedy, action, adventure, and most importantly a hell of an entertaining story. You'll be consistently amazed by the art and entertained by the characters, certainly all the way through chapter 50 and likely beyond.

It's well worth a read if you like the idea of a non-standard shonen series that focuses a lot on the adventure and less so on the action, but still has a good mix of the two.

Well i havent finshed it yet but i have to admit it it has a mysterious story.There is a lot of splater and blood from the very biggining so if u are not a fan of this stuff u better not try to read this...The characters are not so great and u can not feel any particular fellings for them like in other manga ( and anime ) but even with no great characters it is keeping me to watch it cause it has great mystery.Well its not a manga i would recoment to anyone but u can still read it if u want to
see some blood... It has GREAT ART though with all its gore to the max.Well i would give it an overall of 5/10.